In 2008 I took a job as a project engineer for a large building firm in Seattle.  I don’t remember my precise words to my friend Kaley at the time; something to the point of “I probably won’t ever have to dig a ditch with a shovel again,” or some other such driveling forecast.  I never knew true manual labor before moving to Albania for a year.  Now that I am home, it seems I have found my niche again; at the smart end of a shovel, council tool, or sledge hammer.

Yesterday I got my first taste of physical failure in many years.  In the shower, after working on a drain system all day, I could not move without getting one tendon or another to cramp; giving my motions the sudden, jerky quality of a person learning to drive a stick-shift in an abandoned parking lot.  With three curious nephews and one very adult, pre-adult niece within ear shot most of the time, I am having to modify my speech patterns and how I handle my encounters with things I dislike.  I was relieved at the end of the day yesterday to learn that the clients were hiring an extra hand to expedite the conclusion of my project.  My body needs the help.

The worker my clients hired did not show up today.  That is probably best, since I really do enjoy working alone and the freedom of only being responsible for myself.  By mid-morning I was hopeful to get the lion’s share of the digging done.  With the sun high as a reminder of my bodies failure yesterday I was not certain how it all would go.  Thankfully, that’s when help arrived.

One of the most commonly referenced cultural ideas you will hear either in the news or from the people around you is represented by the words “beginner’s luck.”  My friend Bryan Tucker recently released his first documentary film; a movie Titled: Closure, A Documentary About Adoption.  I had the privilege of viewing it last night at a little church in the Roosevelt neighborhood of Seattle.  It is an excellent film, one I am recommending to everyone I love.  Luck played no part in the making of this movie.  Bryan has simply found an appropriate outlet for a certain kind of genius.

The story is an orchestra which crosses our nation and folds together dozens of unlikely characters; giving many of them a kin-like familiarity.  Angela’s search to find her birth mother ends up tearing the lid off of the realities of strangers the audience grows to love, shoring up bonds between the family she always knew, and inspiring steadfast non-believers to take new risks, to participate in the healing of their own wounds.  I am not a part of Angela’s family, but that would be so terrific.

After the film wrapped up, Bryan and Angela took the floor for a question and answer session with the audience.  All I wanted them to hear was “you two hit a home run, this is a home run.”  I am still trying to digest and comprehend the fact that a friend of mine composed such a beautiful tapestry, such a lovely testament to family.  My heart is soaring.

Last Summer I was in Albania travelling from Tirana to Fushe Kruja virtually every day to work on the church there.  For that reason I missed the annual visit my niece and nephews make to my parents’ house.  My parents will be hosting their four grandchildren for the next five or six weeks, and so I am suddenly and totally immersed in an energy-driven whirlpool of imaginative ideas and curious notions, theories on the scientific and fantastic, nonsense and unpredictably clever thoughts and utterances.

The kids are ages 12, 10, 7 and 5.  I still find myself in awe of the richness of the human animal’s DNA.  How can four children, all products of sperm from the same man and eggs from the same woman, be so completely different from one another?  In my sociological studies we constantly were asked to wrestle within the rink of the “nature vs. nurture” debate.  I am leaning towards nature as the chalkboard over which nurturing experiences are drawn and superimposed.  All of these kids are well behaved, confident, educated, and creative.  None of them are a facsimile of either parent or of another sibling.  Each of them has a delightful mind, and is a walking treasure.

I would like to close with a quote from Luke, the 5 year old:

“Why is God waiting to stop the devil?  Because the longer the devil is alive, the more bad things he can do.”

In 2003 I moved home to Seattle after living in New Orleans for 17 months.  The only church I knew about was University Presbyterian and so that is where I began attending what was then called “Tuesday Night Worship.”  We typically had a man named James B. Notkin as the host speaker, but every once in awhile a guest would deliver the message.  It was on one such Tuesday evening that I heard an excellent young pastor named David Lutz.  

Some weeks later I met Dave at either the Sea Tac or the San Diego Airport, I can not remember which.  I had signed up to be a part of a house building team to Mexico as a four day mission from our small body of attendees, and Dave had also.  I had wanted to meet him, to tell him what an excellent job he’d done, and this was my opportunity.  We soon began talking about other things, forming the early semblances of a bond.  After getting to Tijuana we were divided into teams and I was on the same team as Dave.  We have been friends ever since.

I have known Dave for ten years now and we have seen a lot of the other’s story as it happened.  He is the kind of friend who will gladly put himself in an uncomfortable situation in order to help you out.  A good listener, Dave will find the untruth of a story quickly and help in the discerning of the falsehood’s origin.  His wisdom has been resource time and again.  Now that I am home, I hope we can find our rhythm as good friends once more.  I am honored to call him friend.

My younger sister is the only one of my siblings who decided to stay and live in the Seattle area after moving away from home.  As I have matured, and as she has matured, we have grown to enjoy spending time together more and more.  My talents as a carpenter and availability as a willing contributor to her happiness are recent discoveries by her.  On Monday she had me over to show off her new apartment in Bell Town, and also to put together some of her build-it-from-a-kit-anyone-can-put-together-this-simple-furniture-with-neither-tools-nor-skills furniture packages.  The corner bookcase turned out to be the perfect replacement for the old one, which did not match anything in her place.

Mostly due to our age difference, Anne and I have only had a few conversations of any depth.  I forget sometimes that we grew up under the same roof with the same parents and other family providing instruction and other boundaries.  I was interested to hear how much Anne finds she has in common with our mother.

After spending a week at a house in Seattle proper, I returned to my family home last night.  My mother Linda, who is moving forward with a new phase in life, and I have the house to ourselves while my father is away on business.  Linda, encouraged by her cancer diagnosis, has decided to retire after 20 years of teaching.  Her friends held a party for her today.

I have never found relaxing around my family to be so easy as it is now.  None of us knew what to expect when I moved home.  Now that I am back we still do now know what to expect.  I am trying to incorporate the good habits I formed in Albania into my American life and that necessitates a special kind of vigilance.  I want to continue to live free of the bonds I enjoyed the freedom from while abroad.

Last night I met one of my best friends at The Ram in University Village, Seattle.  I am working on getting a property in that area ready to be rented July 1st.  My friend Hannah is one of the people in my life who has been a true, true friend.  When I got home from Europe I only received one message as a welcome home, and it was from her.  Her career is in the education of young women and I always learn something new about my world when we spend time together.  She brought to light a truth about my approach to people last night, and I saw evidence to back her observation when I was at church this morning.

My truth, my world paradigm, is skewed.  This may seem obvious to any thinking person, but I have been too proud to face this fact, and it has been a source for disappointment in my life.  I tend to enter into relationships with an outcome in mind; a predetermined story of the people I am in community with.  I also give glorious license to my imagination when it comes to the attributes of the people I admire.  I can see potentials which will never be, because my hopes are not the image of the hopes of others.  I realize that I am using ambiguous wording here, please forgive me.  I need to protect the people I love.

I need to treat my heroes like people first; people as flawed as I am.  I need to remember that my discovery of a person’s attributes is best when I allow it to simply be, when I am not trying to steer it in one of various directions.  Like a rain shower may be light, or heavy, long or short in duration, it is not for the plants to be disappointed at the level of moisture they receive.  And, if I cease looking for love where it does not exist, I am certain to find it abundantly where it does.

Is construction boring?  Do you find the building of home systems to be one of the topics for conversations which lead only to sleep?  I hope not, because I am a carpenter, and now I am home, and there are things to build.  I was concerned in the waning days of my European travels that I would not have anything to do once I got home.  My inclination is to forget that God has already prepared a path for me, a clear path without stone or root to trip me as I walk it.  Of course I have plenty to keep me occupied in my home town of Edgewood, Washington.

Talking to this guy, the old guy, my dad, that is one of the things on this clear path.  I would not have ever thought that living at home again would appeal to me, but it does.  In Albania the young men live at home with their parents until they are married, and then often times they do not leave, their wife simply moves in.  The family home is a sacred place where security is implied, an understanding from youth, an unalterable.

My father’s name is Harvey.  At some young age he decided to go by the name Joe, which is how everyone who cares for him knows him.  Whenever we get a phone call for “Harvey,” we know that it is a salesperson reading a name from a list.  His brother John will call him “Josephus,” from time to time, an allusion to the ancient Jewish scholar.  In fact, his nicknames are not numerous at all.  Four people call him Dad, and another four call him Grampy.

Only I call him Pop.  I can not remember why I started calling him that.  I think the tradition began around the time I moved home to Seattle from New Orleans.  I had been working in the Gulf of Mexico, and in my mind I had made a transition from a dependent to an independent person.  My parents would and will always be my parents, but Pop was my friend.  When I was talking to Pop, I could say things that I would not have felt good about sharing with the person I call “Dad.”  I think it gave him permission to have new conversations with me too.

Pop, Dad, Joe, Grampy is just your steady, lumbering, predictable yet delightful old guy.  At church he hollers out the choruses, quickly sets down his coffee cup to give a hug, pays extra degrees of attention to toddlers, and is a quick ally to new faces.  When the subject of a joke or prodding he will quickly add flavor to the mockery, bringing an ease and smiles to all within ear shot.  Being a dad is precisely the best fit he’s found as a human.  If you should see him, linger in the bear hug and believe him when he tells you “I am so glad you’re here.”

The poppies took your fiance

The poppies took your sleep

Not fussing or carrying on

Simple warm caretaker and friend

Your man swaddled in clear

Honeycombed plastic hot water injected

Brought his temperature to 35.5

Eyelids flutter as we talk

Stroking back close cropped hair

Feel the bone under there

Mind crying out in thought

Your children grew to love

The man who loved you

Took you his only love

His sorrow like a blanket

Out of time and out

Of time with his love

Steady strong dark haired Athena

 Joshua Hughes

15.June.2013

One week ago I was in Rome, Italy.  Today I woke up in Edgewood, Washington in the USA.  My nation has almost always been a place I have been proud to be from.  Being here, now, and knowing that I will be here for a long time, is an adjustment my mind has yet to make.  It is not that I do not want to be here, I do.  In many ways I need to be here, now.  This morning my mother gave me a kiss before heading off for her radiation treatment.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer two months ago.

When I heard the news, I was still in Albania.  Knowing that everything is in the hands of God, I was soon convinced that I would not see her again.  It wasn’t until a group of my Albanian friends gathered around me to pray for my mother that I knew she would live; at least long enough for us to have another conversation or two.  I was relieved, but still not entirely trusting of my own understanding of God’s plan in all of this.

She encouraged me not to change any of my plans in order to come home early to see her.  I didn’t.   Last night my mother and I had dinner at the Powerhouse in Puyallup, Washington together.  This morning my disorientation at being home is almost complete.  As I look at the opening passages of Jeremiah, I read “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…” (Jer. 1:5, NIV)

I know, God, I do.  And in my heart I know who I belong to.  In my heart and in my mind I know that You care for me and that all of this, everything is pointing in the direction of your redeeming work in the world.  I know who I belong to, and that I am precious to You.  Thank you for more time with my mother.  Amen.